Who killed Josh Warneke?0:54

Ingrid Bishop wants answers. Six years ago her son Josh Warneke was bashed to death in Broome. Now she's sure police got the wrong man she's fighting for the release of Gene Gibson, the man jailed for Josh's killing. Courtesy: 60 Minutes/Channel Nine

June 3rd 2016

2 years ago

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Josh Warneke was killed after being struck from behind in Broome in 2010.Source:Channel 9

AN illiterate Aboriginal man jailed for killing a 21-year-old man in Western Australia’s north has had his manslaughter conviction thrown out.

Gene Gibson, from the remote desert community of Kiwirrkurra, has been serving seven-and-a-half years’ jail for fatally striking Josh Warneke from behind as he walked home from a night out in Broome in 2010.

The 25-year-old has been behind bars for four years and is expected to walk free later on Wednesday.

A series of flawed police interviews more than two years later were deemed inadmissable, forcing prosecutors to drop a murder charge and accept Gibson’s guilty plea to manslaughter.

But Gibson’s conviction was appealed on the basis he suffered a miscarriage of justice because he did not have the cognitive ability or language skills to understand what was happening during the legal process.

Last week, WA’s Court of Appeal heard Gibson’s own confession should be considered unsafe, Perth Now reported.

Some of the state’s top legal minds, who were appearing in court without pay, argued Gibson’s plea was induced by “false or materially unreliable evidence”.

Mr O’Callaghan said he planned to meet Mr Gibson to personally apologise for his wrongful conviction.

Three out of 11 police who faced an internal review have formally advised that they did not accept the 2015 internal findings and made no expression of contrition.

Mr O’Callaghan said they would face disciplinary charges, with penalties ranging from fines to demotion.

Mr Warneke’s mother Ingrid Bishop doubted his guilt and has said publiclu she wanted to be outside the jail when Gibson was released.

Mrs Bishop said she now felt “completely and utterly hoodwinked by WA Police.”

“There is no one else who will fight for justice for Josh and to get Gene Gibson out of jail,” she said.

She told Perth Now: “It has to be done and if no one else is going to do it, I’ll do it.”

“I think 2017 is going to be a great year because Gene Gibson is going to go free and there will be another investigation. I can’t wait for the new team to be appointed. Then we can start from scratch.”

A Corruption and Crime Commission report found the problems with the case were a symptom of wider “failures and weaknesses” in the WA Police handling of major cases.